dabbling in photography, poster art, lemonade, newspapers, lnagazines, lawn lnowing, printing, cabinettnaking, and miscellaneous hawking, but he found aU these activities rather speculative, so he decided to get a regular job after school hours. He was taken on by the Metropolitan, one of the large Dayton clothing stores. His first duties were wrapping packages and running er- rands. Urged on by the curiosity that was later to lnake hitn an itnportant figure in radio, the boy began to investi- gate the other branches of the business. <...; He went over the place from top to bottoln, lnelnorized a nUlnber of statistics, such as ho\v lnany pairs of si7e-42 1110- hair pants were on hand and how tnuch the COlnpany had grossed the previous year, and then decided that it would be worth while to work his way up. During the next nine years, while he finished grade school and went through high schoul and college, The Store, as Stanton caIne to think of it, occupied his attention to the exclusion of nearly everything else but school. Prolnptly after his last class in grade school each day, he would jump on his bicycle, which he had put together froln odds and ends found in his baselnent, and hurry downtown. His industry occasionalIy stunned his em- 11' 1 ployers. He would dispose of the packages; then, as the oth- er errand boys played penny ante and Slnoked cubebs, he would run upstairs and take an inventory of the woollen underwear. He soon got to know the store about as well as the owners, and began to make hitnself indispensable. According to an acquaintance of the period, he was every- where at once, lending a hand, winning over custolners with his wholesolne slnile, clearing up snags in the bookkeeping departlnent, and generally keeping things lnoving. He naturally found kinks in an organization as big as the Met- ropolitan, but he gradually ironed theln out. The window trimlning struck hiln as juve- nile, so he took that over; and then he began to layout the advertising. Even while he was still wrapping packages, the --, Inanagelnent leaned heavily on his counsel. His ubiquitousness was a source of In uch puzzlelnent, and considerable irritation, to the other elnployees. "Tie, sir? " the hoy would cry, stepping out of a showcase, and then, if he lnade a sale, he would dash off to wrap the package, hand it to the custolner, and sprint away to sit in on a lneeting of the board of directors. Stanton was lnaking fifty dol- lars a week for his part-time work be- t> . o . . . , . , , . . t .. s 29 fore he had graduated froln high school,. and The Store was lnore or less revolv- ing around his decisions. As Stanton progressed financially, he developed a lnoderate taste for thrift, to the alnuselnent of his Inore profligate colleagues. "Frankie pinches a nickel so hard he lnakes the Indian ride the buf- falo," they would say, drawing on the contelnporary wit, but their jeers never stopped hi-ln. He used his savings to ( f 1 \ Ii -- -- - ---: _--=:: -ii:I!; -- - .. -- '"-= '; - - "I'm sorry he ever did it. It's given him a terrible sense of basic inferiority."